[3830] WPX CW PJ2T(WI9WI) SOAB QRP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: PJ2T
Operator(s): WI9WI
Station: PJ2T

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: Signal Point
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:    0
   40:  305
   20:  292
   15:  664
   10:  446
------------
Total: 1707  Prefixes = 607  Total Score = 3,622,576

Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn

Comments:

In yet another burst of insanity I decided to operate this year's WPX CW Contest
QRP. I've always wanted to try a contest from the Caribbean QRP, and with the
sunspots maybe about as good as they're going to get I figured the time was
now. I have quite a bit of contest QRP operating experience, but aside from
operating last year's IARU Contest from Ireland as EI/WI9WI with a Flex-1500
radio at 3 watts and a very low dipole, all my operations have been from the
US. Last summer it took me 8 hours to make 100 QSOs. From casual operation at
QRP power levels outside contests at PJ2T, mainly on 20 and 17 meters, and some
experimenting on 15 and 10 meters for a few days before this year's contest,
including checking my signal levels on the RBN,  I knew that if I could find a
reasonably clear frequency I would be able to run on the high bands. Forty
meters would be an unknown until the contest started.

When I operate QRP in a contest my philosophy has always been run if you can. I
agree with everything Mr. Crovelli said in his post from the N2NT (W2GD) WPX QRP
operation about operating QRP. Ordinarily if running low or high power I would
have started on 40 meters with the goal of maximizing 6 point QSOs throughout
the contest. But this is really a rate contest, and I opted to start on 10
meters if it was open, because my QRP signal would stand out better there and I
could probably pretty easily find a clear frequency. That turned out to be the
case. I started with a 76 first hour, not exactly a big time rate, but
certainly satisfactory. The next hour was 80 on 15 meters.  By contrast,
several years ago I had a 150 first hour on 15 running high power. I finally 
worked my way through 20 to 40 arriving about 0400. By that time the band was
closed to far eastern Europe and deep Russia. That was probably a mistake, I
should have gone to 40 sooner. I had no trouble finding a good frequency high
in the band and spent the next 5  hours on 40. My best hour was 51, and after
hours of 15 and 35 I opted to sleep for almost 4 hours. I had 184 40 meter
QSOs, almost all 6 pointers. Last year running low power I had over 600 after
spending almost all night on 40, and 5 years ago running high power I had
almost 900 40 meter QSOs the first night. After getting up I spent most of the
day on 10 and 15 where I felt I would have my best signal and best chance of
keeping a frequency. I ran as best I could, but it was more of a leisurely
stroll than a run with stations calling in every minute or 2 and the only
pileups being the occasional couple of minutes of cluster chaos with 6 or 8
stations calling in on exactly the same frequency. My best rate of the whole
contest was an 87 hour at 2100 on 15 meters, almost all stateside. Then that
night I spent some more time on 40, having my best hour there with a 75 hour at
0200. Forty was better Saturday night mainly because it was less noisy. Signal
levels were similar both nights. I did almost all my receiving on the European
beverage because it was much less noisy than the US beverage or the beam.  I
went to bed about 0530 and took the rest of my time off. I spent Sunday
flitting among 20, 15 and 10. It was hard to get anything going. It was pretty
much a slog working a station every 2 or 3 minutes. My best hour all day was 65
at 2200, which is the usual for Sundays at PJ2T, the best hours of the second
day being near the end of the contest. Most hours were in the 30s and 40s with
one hour at 11 (1400) even though I was in the chair the whole hour. In the end
I was pretty satisfied. Sunday afternoon I did actually fall asleep a couple of
times in the chair. It got pretty boring. 

Some random observations. I've done this contest SOAB from PJ2 now 9 times, 7
times HP, and once each LP and QRP. This contest I pretty much ran the whole
time. I did do some S&P, but not much. A lot of it was unproductive. If
someone else was calling I got beat out  pretty much every time. There was no
point in calling into pileups. A tremendous number of stations CQed in my face.
It was much more productive to CQ. I did virtually all my running high in the
band above .060 except on 10 meters. In 2008 with HP I worked over 1300
stations on 40, almost all 6 pointers. Last year with LP it was 621, and this
year at 5 watts 305. I would guess that about half of the stations I worked on
40 asked for fills of my exchange. I think QRP works much better on the higher,
quieter bands where people can spread out more. I think skimmer and cluster help
the QRP op a lot. Before the days of skimmer and cluster a lot of people
wouldn't have tuned high in the band to find me. My best rate was 87. Last year
with LP I had 6 hours over 100, and running HP have had best rates of about 150.
Ten was pretty much a pipeline to North America. I worked only 2 Europeans on 10
the whole weekend, and no JAs. I worked only 9 JAs the whole contest, 6 on 15
and 3 on 40. It's a long haul for 5 watts to Japan. Total QSOs were 70% NA and
25% Europe.

PJ2T isn't really set up for SO2R. A second radio would have been productive. I
am not a real facile SO2R operator, but at the rates I had for a lot of the
contest I could have made quite a few second radio contacts. If I do this again
I'll bring down my SO2R box and probably my K-3 to use as the primary radio, and
use one of the PJ2T radios as the second radio. 

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and patience pulling out my fills.

73
Jim
WI9WI


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